For days and days he had lived only by the aid of enormous quantities of oxygen. Yesterday alone he had consumed forty containers, at six francs apiece — that mounted up, the gentlemen could reckon the cost themselves; and his wife, in whose arms he had died, was left wholly penniless. Joachim expressed disapproval of this expenditure. Why delay by these torturing and costly artificial expedients a death absolutely certain to supervene? One could not blame the man for blindly consuming (...) the precious gas they urged upon him. But those in charge should have behaved with more reason, they should have let him go his way, in God's name, quite aside from the circumstances, more so when taking them into consideration. The living, after all, had their rights — and so on. Hans Castorp disagreed emphatically. His cousin, he said, talked almost like Settembrini, without regard or reverence for suffering. The man had died in the end, that finished it; there was no more to be done to show one's concern, and it had been due to the dying to spend what one could. Thus Hans Castorp" (1, p 291). (shrink)

Recognized as America's most original philosopher, Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) was a practicing scientist, a logician, and a student of medieval philosophy and the history of science.

I argue that the specter haunting multiculturalism is incommensurability. In many discussions of multiculturalism there is a ‘picture’ that holds us captive — a picture of cultures, religious or ethnic groups that are self-contained and are radically incommensurable with each other. I explore and critique this concept of incommensurability. I trace the idea of incommensurability back to the discussion by Thomas Kuhn — and especially to the ways in which his views were received. Drawing on Gadamer’s understanding of hermeneutics, I (...) argue that the very idea of radical incommensurability is incoherent. This does not entail an abstract universalism but rather sensitivity to the ways in which all languages and cultures are in principle open to the real possibility of enlarging one’s vision and mutually understanding. (shrink)

With Slowing Metaphor Down: Elaborating Deliberate Metaphor Theory (henceforth SMD), Gerard J. Steen has given us a remarkable book, teeming with insights about metaphor use. The volume provides a...

Nietzsche announces his intentions to publish a “physiology of aesthetics”, namely a naturalistic explanation for how aesthetic judgements are grounded in the physiology of both the one experiencing the work, and the creator of it. But as well as the physiological reduction of aesthetic judgements, Nietzsche in many places across his oeuvre frames the apparatus of physiology, especially the prescriptive dimension of self-cultivation, in terms amenable to being treated as ‘aesthetic’. The first section will mount a (re-) defense of the (...) use of aestheticized language for discussing Nietzschean self-cultivation. The second section demonstrates an aesthetic evaluation of capacities that make possible the acquisition and removal of instinctual components, ultimately arguing for Nietzsche’s qualified indeterminism regarding the capacity for self-cultivation. The third section will assess the pres- ence of another aesthetic measure, this time in terms of envisaging one’s psycho-physiology by reference to an external spectacle. The final section discusses metaethical questions stemming from Nietzsche’s prescriptive language regarding the aestheticization of our physiology. (shrink)

In this critical review I explore the anti-intentionalist stance Adorno offers in his aesthetics, specifically focusing on his Notes to Literature, and the internal limits to this stance. Adorno rejects the primacy of authorial intentionalism: The presuppositions of its aesthetic methodology, he claims, place the individual in a position of epistemic priority, without exploring the social totalities which constitute the conditions of the presentation of aesthetic knowledge by any such individual. The role of the creator for Adorno is inherently mediated (...) within the context of such totalities. -/- This is not to wholly discount the role of creative intentions, however. Rather, Adorno frames the artist as a ‘bearer’ and a ‘representative of the total social subject’. In this context he allows for a qualified form of subjectivity, construed as a mode of creativity produced by a particular kind of “achieved self-awareness” or disposition of consciousness towards an “estrangement of meaning”. Indeed, the loss of the stronger presupposition that the subject acts as an authentic expository force can lead to a realization that objectivity by this means constitutes a “loss”, Adorno claims, which creates the possibility for pursuing a critical stance to facilitate the capacity for creating autonomous works of art. Creators of autonomous works acknowledge “the paradoxical relationship of the autonomous work to its commodity character” (‘Valery’s Deviations’), namely an awareness of their inherent reification. The self-alienating yet autonomous work is described by Adorno as possessing and demonstrating tacit yet genuine ‘wants’, but this is framed by the demands of the human condition to recognize how ill-fitting the forces of social production are upon and towards securing them. Aesthetic intentions and the subjects which channel them can be critically valuable if they allude to or exposit the contradictions between these demands and those forces. (shrink)

"A fascinating and timely treatment of the objectivism versus relativism debates occurring in philosophy of science, literary theory, the social sciences, ...

Drawing freely and expertly from Continental and analytic traditions, Richard Bernstein examines a number of debates and controversies exemplified in the works of Gadamer, Habermas, Rorty, and Arendt. He argues that a "new conversation" is emerging about human rationality—a new understanding that emphasizes its practical character and has important ramifications both for thought and action.